The Altered Universe
by TheTemporalSchismIsMyBedroom
Summary: Post Doomsday AU. Rose is still grieving from her inability to ever see her family again, but she and the Doctor have far bigger problems to worry about when they find technology that has the potential to - and probably will - blow the world apart.


**Oi oi! A big hello to everyone who has taken the time to actually click onto my story! (Oh . . . wow. I sound like a Blue Peter presenter . . . ew.)  
Right then. Let's forget that, and move onto the details of said story;  
It is post Doomsday where the Doctor and Rose DID NOT GET TORN APART FROM EACH OTHER. I'm sorry, but that's the one thing I want to hunt down Russel T. Davies and shoot him for, it's so **_**unbelievably**_** wrong . . . although if it hadn't happened, we wouldn't have got to see Martha and Donna, so . . . yeah.  
The relationship between the Doctor and Rose isn't quite at the romantic stage yet but . . . it will be ;) Haven't properly decided on a rating yet, but for now its T. I'll advertise on my A.N's if I need a beta for M rated stuff since to be honest . . . I suck at it :P  
Also, because I suck at describing stuff, the place where they land in London is exactly where they landed when they were in the Parallel world. Vague I know, but it'll make sense :P**

**DISCLAIMER: Doctor Who is in no way mine, otherwise I never would have split these two up and the Doctor would have found a new home being permanently hidden under my bed.**

**Anyways, enjoy, reviews are ALWAYS welcome (they're like milk and cookies to me!) and . . .**

**ALLONS-Y!!  
**

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Rose clutched her stomach and held onto to the side of the TARDIS control panel laughing raucously, a wide smile on her lightly tanned face from their recent escapades on the Polonatian Mountains of Klar. "Are you serious?! She actually said that?" Rose managed to squeak out between fits of giggles.

"Yeah, I'm honestly being serious!" her gangly cohort said from underneath the control panel, his bare feet poking out from the end of his blue suit that fit him _oh_ so very well. "She said – hang on, pass me the litmus forky counter, will you? Cheers Rose. She said—" the Doctor began to giggle in his usual youthful manner from underneath the terminal, his body shaking with laughter slightly. "—do you want fries with that!! Can you imagine; the platypus Coos, the _rulers_ of the South-Western side of the Europa-Stretch galaxy asked if I wanted fries with that!" And with that, the pair collapsed into hysterics.

The Doctor wriggled his way out from under the terminal and wiped away a tear of laughter and sighed, still chuckling. "Of all the constants in the universe – gravity, the speed of light etc. – I never would have expected the McDonalds catch line to be one of them."

To anyone looking in on the TARDIS, they would have presumed the good looking pair to be completely out of their minds, but this was a rare moment of downtime in the lives of the time travelling pair, and they intended to make every peaceful moment absent of frantic running count, even if it only meant taking five minutes to fix the Deep Time/Space Converter Ratio Counter.

"Have you finished with that thing now?" Rose asked, lounging across the air cushioned chairs and pointing at a vague mauve light from underneath the grating.

"Nope, not quite. In fact, I think I'm going to need your help, come 'ere Rose," the Doctor said, his speech slightly impaired by the sonic screwdriver he had just popped into his mouth. Rose made a mental note to not touch that thing again until it had been fully sterilized considering the amount the Doctor drooled on it.

"What do you need?" Rose said, kneeling down by the scruffy haired Time Lord who was currently busying himself by reaching down about three feet through the grating into the depths of the TARDIS.

"Well," the Doctor said, hauling himself back up onto the grating. "What you need to do . . ." the Doctor trailed off slightly as he found himself almost nose to nose with his companion, close enough to see the delicate light brown of her irises. "Uh . . . I need you to do keep an eye on this megacounter."

"A what?"

"Don't worry about it. All you need to know is if it turns red, press the blue button, but if it turns blue, thump the red one. Great!" he said, jumping to his feet and assaulting several buttons on the control panel.

_Five minutes later . . ._

"Um . . . Doctor?" Rose asked tentatively as she remained on the ground, watching the counter.

"Yeeees?" he trilled, picking up the trusty TARDIS mallet and bringing it down upon a variety of buttons.

"Just how long am I supposed to keep an eye on this counter?"

"Oh, just push the blue button, then the orange and pull that lever," the Doctor said, flinging a pile of books off the hub.

"The red one?" Rose said, her hand stretching out to an inviting looking lever. You know, the kind that screams 'don't-touch-me-under-any-circumstances-I'll-only-end-up-being-bad-for-you-well-being'.

"Yes. NO! _Not_ the red one! The blue one next to it!" the Doctor cried out, rushing around to where Rose was kneeling. Unfortunately, Rose's eagerness had gotten the better of her. The TARDIS lurched violently and Rose was thrown from her place underneath the hub and onto the metal railings surrounding the control panel. Rose cried out in pain as the Doctor clung to the control panel, desperately trying to recalibrate a variety of instruments at the same time whilst trying to keep an eye on his assistant who was currently being hurled in all directions by the TARDIS. The Doctor grabbed hold of a display monitor in an attempt to make sense of what on earth – or rather, off earth – was going on with his trusty ship.

"What?!" the Doctor exclaimed at the apparent mish-mash of symbols flying around on the monitor. "We've fallen out of the Time Vortex! _Again! _What the hell is going on with you lately?!" he yelled, kicking the machine. The TARDIS replied with a great sway of its interior, throwing its passengers clean off their feet before it ground to a violent halt. Dust rained gently down from the ceiling after the time machine's abrupt stop.

"Well then . . ." the Doctor grumbled, picking himself up off the floor. "That was inconsiderate. Rose!" he yelled, coming to his senses and rushing to his companion who was lying unconscious on the metal grating in an awkward position. "Rose," he said softly, tapping her cheek softly. "Rose, wake up."

His blonde friend moaned softly and her eyes flickered open to meet the worry filled, dark, chocolate eyes of the Time Lord crouching over her. "Doctor," she murmured, holding a hand to her head. "My head hurts," she giggled confusedly.

"I think you're concussed, little miss," he chuckled fondly. "Come on, up you get." The Doctor scooped Rose up into his arms and carried her over to the air cushioned chairs, sitting her down gently as she giggled aimlessly.

"Doctor," she snickered, trying to remove several strands of her messy hair from her face. "I'm quite dizzy did you know? It's a very weirdy feeling."

"Well, if you take this," the Doctor said chuckling, handing Rose a beaker of a sinister looking blue liquid. "That 'weirdy' feeling will go away."

Rose sipped at the beaker tentatively and grimaced as the liquid passed her lips. "_That_ is disgusting!"

"It's supposed to be; its Chirrup root extract from the deepest valleys of Sri Garda. It's well known for being one of the most ghastly tastes in the entire galaxy. Now, drink up and you'll be right as rain," the Doctor grinned, running around the controls of The TARDIS, frantically pressing buttons. "Why won't you work?!" he exclaimed, irritated with his not-so-trusty machine.

"What's wrong?" Rose asked as the lights flickered weakly and died altogether, only the soft light of the hub giving the pair room to see around the TARDIS.

The Doctor sighed heavily and flicked the monitor in hopes that it would suddenly spring to life but sadly, it wasn't going to subsist. "I think . . . we've done it again."

"Done what again?" Rose stood from her place at the chair and set down her now empty beaker, a few blue dregs sitting limply at the bottom of the cup. The Doctor ran a hand through his hair and sighed heavily then abruptly sprinted towards the doors of the TARDIS.

"Please no, please no, please no . . ." the Doctor muttered as he ripped open the battered blue doors. Light streamed through the cavity in the ship's frame and flooded the inside of the TARDIS and the slightly dazed, blonde, London girl who was carefully making her way towards the lanky yet handsome Time Lord who was frenetically looking from left to right over and over again like some crazed cartoon.

"Doctor," Rose laughed, creeping up behind him and looking over his shoulder at the scene in front of them. "We're in London, stop freaking out."

"Rose," the Doctor said gravely. "We're not in London. Well, we _are _but not _our_ London, not the London with chips."

Rose pushed passed the Doctor gently, stepping out onto the pavement by the Thames. A warm breeze whistled through the artificially planted trees that were sitting underneath the perfect, cloudless blue sky. She turned to the Doctor, her face a picture of uneasiness but her sparkling eyes said otherwise. "When you say we're not in _our_ London, you mean . . ."

"Yup," the Doctor said, popping the P and thrusting his hands into his pockets. "Parallel world. Again."

"So is this the same world Mum and Pete and Mickey are in?" Rose said, skipping merrily to the wall, leaning over and looking down into the murky Thames below.

"I highly doubt that," the Doctor said, standing next to his bright eyed companion whose face hastily fell at that statement. "I'm sorry Rose," he said, noticing her expression. "But the odds of landing in the same parallel world as your family are astronomical. Seriously, off the top of my head I'd estimate it at something like . . . ooh, one in . . . say, five times ten to the power of eight hundred. At least."

"But, it's the same place we landed in last time. _Exactly_ the same place, I even recognize that bench," Rose said, her voice – the voice the Doctor loved to hear so very much – becoming agitated.

"Rose, last time we thought it was London, but when we looked to the sky it was crawling with blimps. Where are they now?" the Doctor said, pointing skywards. Sure enough, there wasn't a blimp in sight, not even for advertising purposes.

"But—"

"Rose." The Doctor shook his head gently. "We're not."

Rose sighed heavily, and raised a hand to her eye, wiping away what looked like a tear. "I just . . . I wanted to see them again, that's all." The Doctor thought that one comment was enough to break both of his hearts at the same time; he knew that he was to blame for this. He could have sent her to be with her family but for some inexplicable reason, she stayed with him.

_Once the breach collapses that's IT. You will never be able to see her again. Your own mother!_

_I made my choice a long time ago and I'm never gonna leave you._

It had been a trying ten weeks since the Battle of Canary Wharf, and Rose had been oddly quiet on the matter of her inability to ever see her family again, but recently it had gradually start to trickle out. The Doctor wrapped his arms around Rose's petite body and pulled her close to him against his chest. Rose gratefully buried her face in the crook of the Doctor's neck, quietly sobbing as the Doctor comforted her. "I've got your jacket all wet," Rose sniffled, pawing at the small, round patches on the Doctor's shoulder.

"Ah, it's no problem! That's what jackets are there for. Right then!" he exclaimed with a crazy yet fun-loving glint in his eye which prompted a small giggle from his gloomy friend. The Doctor grabbed hold of Rose's hand and pulled her in the general direction of a bridge adorned with several odd looking machines. "Now, what do we have here?" he said curiously, bending down to inspect one of the small, square, metallic blue boxes.

Rose let out a small laugh. "They have little blue boxes in this universe as well. How . . . quaint."

"Oi! Don't knock little blue boxes! If it wasn't for that considerably larger little blue box over there we'd both be a vaporised pool of nothing right now seeing as the Time Vortex is like a tornado of a thousand suns. Ergo, it's very hot, very volatile and twirls round and round in a circle very fast."

"Alright. Chill," Rose grinned at the Doctor who was currently prodding and poking the machine in every space he could fine.

"Gah! How does this _work?!_" the Doctor exclaimed, tapping the box with his sonic screwdriver. "What are you? Are you a clock? Are you a shopping trolley? Are you a mobile library with the full works of Sophie Kinsella – the Shopaholic series in particular?"

Rose shook her head disbelievingly. It never ceased to amaze her how often the Doctor would talk to inanimate objects. "Doctor, there's a money slot on top of it," Rose said, pointing to a small gap, presumably for coins to fit in. "I think I've got some spare change in my pocket . . ."

"Rose, we don't even know if they have the same currency as us over here," the Doctor warned her.

"We'll soon find out, won't we?" Rose grinned, letting a fifty pence coin drop into the box. A few seconds passed and nothing of interest came of the box.

The Doctor looked at the box blankly. "Well, I think it's safe to say that—" the Doctor was cut short by a hologram springing from a small black lens and forming a rectangular control panel. "Whoa. Now, _that_ I was not expecting."

"What the hell is that?"

"It's a menu," the Doctor said, whipping out his glasses. "For a . . . a news channel? Yes, it's a news channel!" The Doctor placed his forefinger on a square labelled _'World News'_. "Let's see what this world is up to then, shall we?"

The Doctor's fingers lithely played on the holographic display and soon several headlines were scrolling down the screen. "So, what's happening . . . '_Jessica Anittonn's New Film Flops' . . . 'Oil Baron Gregor Milovich Finds Gold Reserves in Central Asia' . . . 'Sector 16's Latest Weapon Technology is Collaborating with Computer Company Pear to Fight the Battle Against Computer Viruses'_ Ha! Pear! It's just like Apple. What else is there? _'Sector 15 has Launched New Fusion Reactor off the Coast of Brazil'. _AH! Now what have we here?!" the Doctor exclaimed, pressing to confirm viewing of the article.

"So some company has made a new energy plant, what's so important about that?" Rose asked, craning in to get a better look.

"What is so important is the energy supply itself. Listen," the Doctor said, moving aside for her.  
"_Sector 15 has launched South America's third Fusion Reactor off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil today, bringing the global count to twenty-one, soon to be increased to twenty-five after Russia welcomes two more reactors, Kazakhstan opens its first, Australia builds its second and Greece conducts the first merger of reactors between two nations with Italy. All of the aforementioned are to be happening within the next two weeks, which leaves suggestions that the Fusion Globe will be up and running within the month, but Sector 15 have yet to confirm these speculations due to the severe setbacks in construction.  
These assumptions have arisen at what is considered to be a shaky time for Sector 15 considering the rumours about the safety of the Fusion Globe that have been fuelled by last year's Jersey Tragedy. When questioned in regards to the safety of the Fusion Globe, a spokesperson for Sector 15 has directed us to the statement issued two months ago after the clean-up of Jersey at long last, ended. The part of the statement that was to be referred to, was the segment where Sector 15 implicitly urged the general public that the tragedy was due to human error and clumsiness, not fault with the technology. Debates over the safety and efficiency of waste disposal have also been brought up again by several Greenpeace related organisations following the recent closure of Europe's largest nuclear pit. Sector 15 has repeatedly assured said organisations that their waste disposal methodology has been updated by the world's brightest minds, young and old, inclusive.  
_"Well now," the Doctor said, removing his glasses. "Maybe it's just as well we landed in this universe since if this world is using fusion reactors, something is very wrong here," he said gravely.

"Are you sure? I mean, I heard the news talking about fusion reactors all the time at home," Rose asked, a confused look on her slightly tear streaked face.

"Think carefully Rose, you heard them talking about _fission_ reactors. A few different letters but a whole different meaning."

". . . yeah, I'm not getting what's so terribly wrong about this."

The Doctor kicked the small box with his foot and the image disappeared. "Okay Rose, listen carefully, this is quite difficult physics we're dealing with here."

Rose groaned; even extensive time travelling with perhaps the smartest man in the galaxy – if not the universe – still had no beneficial effects on her ability to understand the most infamous of the sciences. The Doctor grinned at Rose. "Don't worry; I'll dumb it down for you."

"Please do."

The Doctor took hold of Rose's hand gently and they began to wander back to the TARDIS. "Alrighty then. Fusion power is the energy generated by nuclear fusion reactions – the clue's kind of in the name – and in this kind of reaction, two light atomic nuclei – usually hydrogen – fuse together to form a heavier nucleus and in doing so, release a large amount of energy. In a more general sense, fusion power can also refer to the production of net usable power from a fusion source, similar to the usage of the term "steam power", so really it's a glorified steam engine." A small glint appeared in the Doctor's eye, just as it always did when he spoke of physics.  
"Now, back home The largest current experiment is the Joint European Torus and they produced a peak of 16.1 megawatts – 21,600 horsepower – of fusion power – 65% of input power – with fusion power of over 10 megawatts . . ." the Doctor trailed off when he saw Rose's blank expression. "Basically for such a short amount of time, it was a lot of power but they weren't able to sustain it for any longer than half a second, so the fact that this world has twenty-one on-line fusion reactors is not right because humans shouldn't have this kind of technology for a good century or two. Meaning, that something else has been interfering with human development since so far, fusion has only ever occurred in stars at temperatures of over ten million degrees Celsius."

"Oh! And that's impossible for us to achieve so far, I remember you saying a few weeks ago," Rose said proudly.

"Indeed it is," the Doctor smiled warmly at her, tightening the grip on her hand ever so slightly. So, the question is," the Doctor sighed, looking at a great billboard bearing the words _'Vote Matthew McHale: the man who will take you into the age of the Fusion Globe'. _"Just who exactly has been interfering?"

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**Thanks for reading! Review are warmly welcomed : )**


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